Birth control lawsuit settled; Thomas Aquinas College claims victory

During a White House press briefing, Sarah Huckabee Sanders said recent questions about the rollback of guaranteed birth control coverage is a First Amendment issue that has already been decided on by the Supreme Court.
USA TODAY

Officials at Thomas Aquinas College outside of Santa Paula say a settlement with the federal government protects them from a birth control mandate that they say conflicts with Catholic principles.(Photo: COURTESY OF THOMAS AQUINAS COLLEGE)

A birth control battle that spawned four years of litigation and reached the U.S. Supreme Court appeared to end Monday as a Santa Paula-area Catholic college declared victory, citing Donald Trump's election as a turning point.

Thomas Aquinas College and 73 other plaintiffs sued over the Affordable Care Act mandate that employers provide insurance covering contraceptives, saying it conflicted with their religious beliefs. In May, the Supreme Court returned the case to appeals courts, asking plaintiffs and the government to negotiate on possible resolutions.

That process produced a settlement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and others that was officially approved Friday. Plaintiffs filed for dismissals of their court cases on Monday.

College President Michael McLean said the terms were even more favorable than the Trump decision this month to allow more employers to opt out of the mandate for religious or moral reasons.

"Not only does it protect us from what the ACA puts in place but it protects us from anything that might be similar in the future from any administration," he said, calling the case a win for religious liberty.

"The college now feels confident that we can continue to offer insurance coverage that's consistent with our Catholic principles," he said.

Julie Mickelberry, a vice president with Planned Parenthood California Central Coast, said the settlement was disappointing.

"It's unconscionable that in 2017 that anyone would deny a women access to birth control or other preventive services," she said in a statement. "Bottom line, it's not your bosses' business."

Thomas Aquinas, located 5 miles outside of Santa Paula at the edge of Los Padres National Forest, joined a lawsuit in September 2013 against the birth control mandate that was part of President Barack Obama's signature health care reform. Two years ago, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the litigation and in May 2016 justices returned the case to the appeals level.

Negotiations with the government to find a solution started slowly at first, McLean said.

"Before the election, the government was not especially responsive to the efforts of our attorneys to work out a solution," he said. "I think frankly the government was assuming that Hillary Clinton would win the election."

After Trump's victory, discussions with the government accelerated, McLean said, citing the president's campaign promises to protect religious liberty.

"This settlement seems to be a fulfillment of that pledge," he said. "I'm reasonably confident that if Hillary Clinton had been elected we would not have achieved the same outcome."

The terms of the settlement are not revealed in public court records because they're confidential, said John Quincy Masteller, the college's lawyer. Officials from the Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As the battle involving Thomas Aquinas ends, the fight over the White House's broadened religious and moral exemptions to the birth control mandate continue. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed a lawsuit earlier this month in protest of the new rules.

California state law already requires insurance plans to provide birth control coverage without any co-pays. The federal mandate and the exemptions could impact employers that are self-insured and therefore not covered by the state requirement.

In his lawsuit, Becerra cited estimates that more than 6 million Californians may be covered by self-insured plans. He said at least 25 employers in the state with 54,879 workers would likely seek an exemption to the plan.

The attorney general's office did not respond to a message asking for more information about the estimates. Edward "Ned" Dolesji, executive director of the California Catholic Conference, said he knew some small employers who were interested in the exemption but suggested the numbers could be relatively small.

"I just don't see it as being a big deal in California," he said, noting some employers, including houses of worship, are already exempt.

But Jenna Tosh of Planned Parenthood Central Coast Action Fund said in a statement it's possible millions of California women could be impacted, meaning they may not be able to afford contraception. She said Trump's administration is waging a "full-scale attack" on birth control.

"Birth control is not controversial — it's health care the vast majority of women will use in the course of their lifetime," she said, then citing the state lawsuit against the new White House rule. "We stand with Attorney General Becerra and will use every tool at our disposal to defeat this unlawful and heinous action."